This is my first post. I have only brewed a couple times, with extract and grain bags, and they turned out great. One was a Honey Weizen, the other was an Irish Red Ale(brewer's best kits). I have been reading the forums and want to start all grain brewing.

Has anyone tried creating a mash tun from an old stainless steel sink? and where do you get an old keg to cut into a brew pot?

Thanks

I just found these forums a couple weeks ago, and I'm officially an addict.

Here's my solution for what it's worth. I'm also assuming 5 gallon final volume batches. Go down to your local fish and chips place a get 3 4-gallon pails. go to your brew supply shop and get one of the cardboard boxes that carboys come in. clean and disinfect the buckets. drill small holes in one of the bucket bottoms (1 1/8th inch hole every 2 inches) - now called the "holy bucket".

put one of the solid bottom buckets into the cardboard box and use that to steap your grain. the cardboard acts as an excellent insulator, as does the plastic pail. you can improve the box by filling the corners with poly fill but it get's messy.

to sparge place an oven rack or fridge rack over you boiling kettle and place the holy bucket on top of the rack. place your grain bag in the bucket. pour your mash in the holy bucket and dribble sparge water over the grain. The third bucket is great for holding the sparge water. Also, when you are done sparging you can put the holy filter bucket into the spare bucket and things are kept nice and tidy.

OK, this is not totally free, but cheap enough ... Read Charlie Papazian's "New Joy of Homebrewing" advanced all grain brewing section. This will give you all of the information you need to brew all grain, I read it three times before I even considered making my first all grain batch. Secondly there is some basic equipment you'll need, Charlie talks about and shows you how to make a Zapap Lauter Tun, and you'll need a pot big enough to boil 8 gallons, and a wort chiller, my recommendation is a counterflow. Just read all you can to understand what is needed and expected before you brew your first batch, good luck and welcome to both of you as new members, this is a great site ...

I stumbled across John Palmer's How to Brew. It looks like an excellent online brewing resource. I bottled an extract/specialty grain dry stout a couple of weeks ago and am looking forward to moving up to all-grain once I get a few more brews under my belt. I'm devouring information before I make that step.